Page 75 of Chaos & Carnage

“There’s some just down there,” the same voice answered, but it didn’t come from in front of me.

Caleb.

I tugged my helmet off so he couldn’t miss the scowl I shot at him.

“I don’t want her wandering round here by herself,” Cade answered him.

“Agreed, brother. I don’t want her alone here either.”

I turned at him again, and this time there would be no way he could miss my glare. But he didn’t deserve my words or my attention.

“I really need the toilet, Cade.” The cold hit me hard again with a shiver so strong it threatened to empty my bladder there and then.

“I’ll go with her,” the small blonde woman, who’d just clambered off one of the bikes in front of us, offered.

“Don’t really want Suzy wandering around here either,” a thinner man with a muss of mousy hair and the long goatee beard chipped in.

“Look. We’ll be fine. We’ll go to the toilets and grab something warm. I need a coffee too, Magnet,” she continued when he opened his mouth to complain again. “Get the tents up so we can get these cold leathers off, and if any one of you cracks open a beer before everything is unloaded and put up, I’ll throw a bitch fit.”

She scanned the group, slowing on every face that watched us. Cade, Magnet, Caleb. Each of them nodding in quiet agreement like little boys standing in the headmaster’s office.

“Come on, Alice. This way.”

Suzy led us around the side of the rest of the encampments, being careful not to the walk through the middle of anyone’s zones.

“There’s so many of them,” I muttered, my eyes scanning left and right and back again.

“Of what, honey?”

“Bikes. Bikers. Flags. Leather. All of them. All of it.” I was cold. I was babbling. I had to have hypothermia.

“This is one of the biggest, most popular rallies of the year.”

“Why?” My head still swivelled, watching everywhere, everyone.

“It’s the Frostbite rally….”

“Figures,” I interrupted, rubbing my gloved hands together.

Suzy wrapped an arm protectively round my shoulders. “Come on. You look freezing.”

“I am.”

We didn’t have to go too much further, dropping down the other side of the hill to the food stands, rows of plastic, portable toilets and then the huge marquees I’d seen from the entrance. There were already queues growing. Cold bikers looking for something to warm up.

“Come on,” Suzy tugged at my elbow. “This one always sells the best coffee. And hot mini doughnuts.”

“I’m desperate,” I beckoned the rows of hideous blue porta-potties, stood like sentries inspecting all those who meandered into the makeshift food court. “You go ahead. I just need a moment.”

By the time I stepped out again, the door clanging shut behind me, making me wince at the thundering noise, the food court was a hive of activity. Suzy waved from three people away from the top of the queue.

“Has Cade told you about back patches yet?”

“Back patches?”

“Yeah. The badges the boys wear on their jackets?” She winced slightly, biting the far side of her bottom lip in the tiniest of movements.

“No. I don’t think so.”